When dreams you didn’t even know you had, come true.

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The world is continuing to inspire me with every passing day, and I’m noticing that even though I need at least 3 lifetimes to effectively execute my current bucket-list, and no mater how hard I try to practice some crazy, wild child ambitious dreaming, it seems that there will be some morsels of gold thrown my way, materializing fantasies I haven’t even ‘dreamt’, conjured, tasted, or felt yet.

It is precisely at this point, (when I see paddle-boards on someone’s car roof), that I not only realize that I now want to paddle-board along the entire bay, but also, that my bucket list will never be complete.

I will always need another leaf of paper as soon as all the dotted lines are filled, and a trip to the newsagent, once I have exasperated every option on my 4-pen.

Surely, as soon as I tick off hiking to Base Camp, the Everest trek will supersede my next day-off hike, and just when I think I have seen every crevice of Barcelona, I will acknowledge that Granada is only a short train ride south, with an inevitable backyard of even more spectacular things for me to touch, explore and appreciate.

From that location and perspective, I just know that another place, idea, experience, ride, walk, talk or book will come flying my way and a whole new world will open before me, for the thousandth time.

What I’m learning today, tomorrow, next week, and now, is that this world is fast, so fast that if you blink you might just miss it, the way that you might miss the Town Centre of Yackandandah, if you look down at your volume dial in an attempt to turn the radio up whilst driving. (Shout out to my fave, and only Yack-er, Harry Quealy).

We never really know where the de-tour is actually going to take us, or if we might just find the next big thing on Bean Hunter if we go left instead of right.

The implications and consequences of every thought, word, action, chance encounter, and brief meeting is something we will never truly grasp.

But that’s the beauty of it right? Making rules in order to break them, and setting plans so you can bail last minute for something better, greater, funner?

So keep dreaming, little dreamer, as Cinderella says, a dream is a wish your heart makes. Corny I know, but everyone loves a little Disney flashback (or maybe that’s just me…awks).

A passionate discussion on passion, not pashing.

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There’s a lot of noise at the moment about passion.

Passionfruit has always been delish, and Passiona a somewhat refreshing beverage.

But take away these suffixes, then your’e just left with little old passion. Just. Left. With. Passion. A 7 letter gem that shapes a lot of what the mystics call their ‘life-purpose’, what the entrepreneurs label their ‘calling’, and what I like to call, something bloody massive I just cant decide on.

I mean, personally, I want to be a writer, a dancer (currently I’m perfecting the moonwalk), a surfer (thanks Blue Crush), a corporate bitch, a band-member, a hippie who lives in a combi in Byron and sells handmade jewellery, a yoga instructor, a Buddhist monk, a mining magnate, Miranda Kerr… basically, everything under the sun.

I guess in my fiasco of options, I am desperately just trying to define my, wait for it… PASSION.

As I learn more about the said, 7 letter-er, I can safely say the two of us are slowly becoming friends.

Motivational books will tell you to “follow your passion” if happiness is what you truly seek, but thanks Confucius, how am I meant to follow something when I don’t even know what it looks like? There is no road-sign, no Google answer, not even a Wikipedia article that precisely tells me what my passion is. So, your notions of living a purposeful life are really of no help to me at all, not unless you help me find it anyway.

So I assigned myself a James Bond mission to get to the bottom of the P word. What I found was surprisingly simple.

What. Do. You. Love. 

But here’s the catch, you have to limit it to 10. And list them in order.

These are your passions. Voila!

A 10-point list could very well include:

·      Cheerleading,

·      Shopping,

·      Travelling,

·      Eating McDonald’s fries,

·      Being with friends,

·      Reading,

·      Watching the Disney Channel,

·      Playing in the pool,

·      Playing with dogs,

·      Being in the sun.

Please note these are the Top 10 ‘passions’ of my 12 year-old sister.

So enlighten me, how on earth is she going to make a career out of being a dog-loving, junk-food munching, cheerleader? Truth is, mate, she’s not.

So as an informer big sister, do I tell her to discard all these fun things because, well honey, that ain’t gon’ pay the bills? 

Nope, I tell her to lap them up, do these things, and do them often!

Do them for as long as you stop loving doing them, and when you do, find something more fun and enjoyable to replace them.

Because they are your passions.

(P.S she later argued, telling me that people actually can make money being a cheerleader, enough for a 50-cent cone anyway!)

I think what we get caught up in, is thinking that you have to find passion in a job or career, but truthfully, that would be condemning your crazy passions into a tiny hole and saying, ‘don’t move, breathe, or smile. No fun allowed’. Passion is so much more multi-faceted. 

Sure, we would all love to be Oprah, or Kelly Slater, doing for a job what we LOVE, but let’s be realistic. Don’t think that if you are not able to land your dream job on Getaway, that you are going to live in misery, you can be as happy as Pharrell, even if you are the toilet cleaner at Flinders Street Station on a Saturday night.

But “how” you scream. I’ll impart my wisdom with you, it’s all about how you spend the remaining 77 hours of your week (considering a 35 hour work week and 56 crucial beauty sleep provisions).

That my sweet child, is where you live your passions. Read, dance, bake, write, sing, play, laugh and laugh some more!

Even if you just spend half your free time doing the things you love, you have already outbid your day job. Kapish?

So basically, yeah. Homework for this week, list your ten passions, and sacrifice Game of thrones to play out your own fanstasy!

I would love to hear your thoughts on the passionate topic, and what activities and things come up in your Top 10 list.

 

P.S Take a leaf from Janey’s book, this gal is one passionate painter!

 

Shredding for life, not Stereo.

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I’ve always wondered why Personal Training is such a huge industry, I mean, surely I can count how many reps I’m up to in my dumbbell squats, and I’m pretty sure I know when my 30 second rest interval is up following a sprint (thanks stopwatch).

And what am I paying you to do anyway?

To remind me to drink more water?

To always stretch after a strength session?

To not down too many Vodkas on Saturday night?

I know all of this. But every year, when Spring begins and I realise how fast Summer is charging towards me, and how badly I want to live on the beach in a Seafolly bikini with the body confidence of Miranda Kerr, I always decide that “I definitely, 100% need a personal trainer” – for the 1000th time.

But why do I feel that I need to splurge hard earned coin on a bystander to watch me burpee my life away?

Oh, just a little birdy I like to call, accountability.

The ‘A’ word is exactly what Australians spend $390m a year on. (Personal Trainers in Australia: IBIS World)

It’s interesting isn’t it, that we seek the need to feel obliged or answerable to an external source, in order to fulfill a task set before us – even if it is for our own benefit. But I guess it’s just the top bloke inside us, who wants to feel as if we have done someone a favour.

I don’t blame you! Think about when you were young, how you would help mum in the garden, or clean your room, and be so eager to tell everyone how you were SUCH an essential contributor to how lovely the roses looked, or how clean the entire house was. The same childlike attitude towards rewards, clearly still resides somewhere inside us.

It all comes back to our desire for gratification, essentially to feel good. We can’t shake centuries of hedonism! I mean you can try, just make sure you ‘shake it like a polaroid picture’, and let me know how you go!

And this provision of gratification in a positive way, is how a few of my pals at Bodytone Training are achieving great successes with every passing day. Let me explain.

The boys at Bodytone, are helping each client to reach their health and fitness goals at frighteningly spectacular speeds. It seems, they have understood the very essence of what Trainers stand for, and leveraged it to it’s maximum. It’s safe to say, that these lads are taking accountability to a WHOLE new level.

Think DAILY contact: routine phone calls, a simple text or even a sneaky snap chat, in which clients are made accountable, answerable, responsible and liable. Every indulgent confession, each smashing of a new personal best, it’s all out there, and after your daily update with the PT you’ll either feel rather guilty, or incredibly amazing for today’s effort.

So the take-away from this week? Get accountable!

Don’t necessarily get a trainer (although if you want one, give Bodytone a bell), hire a personal coach, enlist a Spanish tutor, employ a Yoga instructor and find a nutritionist. Just start enlisting those you already have around you.

Start using your friends and family. Share your goals and ideas, you will be surprised at what others share in return, how their unique perspective enriches your own, and how truly, “two minds are better than one”.

This is most important in terms of goal attainment, we sometimes need someone who is a “3rd party observer with absolutely no personal interest in the matter” (Viola, She’s the Man), to remind us of our progress, improvement and development.

So puh-lease start sharing your goals, talk about them, go crazy, get people involved. They will love it.

I’d love to hear how sharing your goal with others has helped you!